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I went to the Lunar New Year Celebration in Chinatown yesterday, along with friends Michelle and Florangel. We got there too late to see the parade, but we saw a bunch of dragon dances and the smoke from a five-foot tall tower of fireworks!

The Friendship Arch, with tons of people gathered for the festival.

There was a group of women drumming away, providing the music for the dragons to dance.

This long dragon was trying to eat a round thing on a stick.

Eventually a red dragon hopped onto the stage, and the people on the stage began feeding it envelopes of something – maybe money?

The dragon eating an envelope.

Next, the people on stage filed through the crowd to the area with the fireworks. I’m assuming they then lit them, but there were so many people (and the fireworks weren’t on a stage, just the ground) that hardly anyone could see what was going on. I saw plenty of smoke, though, and heard plenty of bangs and pops, so I assume everything went off correctly.

Lots of smoke!

Next came the most exciting part for me. The dragons retreated through the crowd, and did one final dance. I was able to maneuver my way right in front of them, and got some really good shots! Hooray! Close to the action at last!

Dragons - so close!

At one point, I think one of the dragons spit out a whole bunch of black cats, which popped like crazy on the ground and terrified a little girl in front of me. Pretty exciting.A

After the dragon’s last dance was over, the crowd began to disperse. It was fun, and I’m really glad I went! Please check out my Flickr page for more (and more artistic) photos of the event.